at a glance

The architectural vision for Chow presents a room painted in pale whites and highlighted with tones of eggshell and cream. The soft colors are framed with lustrous, dark woodwork. Suffused sunlight seeps through enormous glass blocks. The effect is an airy, almost heavenly atmosphere.

“I really, really like this space,” says Chow’s restaurant manager, Patrick Uong, a Cambodian-born, California-raised bon vivant with visible enthusiasm for his work and a near encyclopedic knowledge of food and wine.

Chow is scheduled to open in mid-April on the ground floor of The Quay Hotel, the FCC Group’s latest hotel venture. FCC group executive chef Clinton Webber is responsible for the menu, an eclectic mélange of regional specialties.

“At Chow we adopt the strong regional belief that food is for the mind, body and soul,” Webber writes on the menu. “The categories on our menu give importance to the balance and blend of the foods. They speak of strength, texture and seductive aroma.”

“At Chow we adopt the strong regional belief that food is for the mind, body and soul. The categories on our menu give importance to the balance and blend of the foods. They speak of strength, texture and seductive aroma.”

Chow’s signature dish will be elephant fish, a popular Southeast Asian specialty. Served steamed, the fish comes garnished with Asian greens and topped with a sweet peppercorn and tamarind sauce.

Like many things on Chow’s menu, the elephant fish is designed to be shared in typical Asian style.

Other fare includes popular regional offerings like Thai tom yam and Indonesian gado-gado, a hearty vegetable salad made with green beans, Asian greens and bean sprouts and garnished with peanut sauce.

“We do stuff that you’ll recognize,” says Webber. “But we’ll do it a lot different to what you usually see.”

Amok shows up on the menu, for example. But instead of traditional Cambodian-style fish amok, Webber’s version trades the fish for hard-shell crab.

Expect lots of mixes made with celery, spinach and other super-greens, as well as unusual fruit-vegetable combinations like strawberry-cucumber.

Fine wine and fruit juices are done elsewhere in Phnom Penh, but few places cater to the upscale end of the market. Even fewer specialize in regional cuisine, and it is here that Uong and Webber believe Chow can corner an obvious yet oddly underserved part of the Phnom Penh restaurant market.

“Where do you go for good Asian food?” Uong asks with the sincerity of a genuine foodie, hoping to get an answer he’s never heard. But beyond a few usual suspects, there is admittedly not much.